Ecological impacts of pesticide seed treatments on arthropod communities in a grain crop rotation

Dubey, Aditi; Lewis, Margaret T.; Dively, Galen P.; Hamby, Kelly A.

doi:10.1111/1365-2664.13595

Cited by 20 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(114 reference statements)

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“…Therefore, pesticide risk to all soil invertebrates in the United States is essentially estimated by harm to a species that generally does not come into contact with the soil and does not share any of the same exposure pathways. For example, most neonicotinoid seed coatings end up in the soil, and concentrations of neonicotinoids can be drastically higher in soil than in pollen (Goulson, 2015;Willis Chan et al, 2019;Dubey et al, 2020;Main et al, 2020).…”

Section: Surrogacy In Pesticide Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pesticides and Soil Invertebrates: A Hazard Assessment

Gunstone¹,

Cornelisse²,

Klein³

et al. 2021

Front. Environ. Sci.

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170

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Agricultural pesticide use and its associated environmental harms is widespread throughout much of the world. Efforts to mitigate this harm have largely been focused on reducing pesticide contamination of the water and air, as runoff and pesticide drift are the most significant sources of offsite pesticide movement. Yet pesticide contamination of the soil can also result in environmental harm. Pesticides are often applied directly to soil as drenches and granules and increasingly in the form of seed coatings, making it important to understand how pesticides impact soil ecosystems. Soils contain an abundance of biologically diverse organisms that perform many important functions such as nutrient cycling, soil structure maintenance, carbon transformation, and the regulation of pests and diseases. Many terrestrial invertebrates have declined in recent decades. Habitat loss and agrichemical pollution due to agricultural intensification have been identified as major driving factors. Here, we review nearly 400 studies on the effects of pesticides on non-target invertebrates that have egg, larval, or immature development in the soil. This review encompasses 275 unique species, taxa or combined taxa of soil organisms and 284 different pesticide active ingredients or unique mixtures of active ingredients. We identified and extracted relevant data in relation to the following endpoints: mortality, abundance, biomass, behavior, reproduction, biochemical biomarkers, growth, richness and diversity, and structural changes. This resulted in an analysis of over 2,800 separate “tested parameters,” measured as a change in a specific endpoint following exposure of a specific organism to a specific pesticide. We found that 70.5% of tested parameters showed negative effects, whereas 1.4% and 28.1% of tested parameters showed positive or no significant effects from pesticide exposure, respectively. In addition, we discuss general effect trends among pesticide classes, taxa, and endpoints, as well as data gaps. Our review indicates that pesticides of all types pose a clear hazard to soil invertebrates. Negative effects are evident in both lab and field studies, across all studied pesticide classes, and in a wide variety of soil organisms and endpoints. The prevalence of negative effects in our results underscores the need for soil organisms to be represented in any risk analysis of a pesticide that has the potential to contaminate soil, and for any significant risk to be mitigated in a way that will specifically reduce harm to soil organisms and to the many important ecosystem services they provide.

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Section: Surrogacy In Pesticide Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pesticides and Soil Invertebrates: A Hazard Assessment

Gunstone¹,

Cornelisse²,

Klein³

et al. 2021

Front. Environ. Sci.

Self Cite

170

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“…Unlike some transgenic crops (i.e., Bt hybrids), NSTs were not developed in response to new or recurring pest outbreaks; in fact, pest populations remain at historic lows in many US crops ( 4 , 5 ). As a result, studies have struggled to document a clear agronomic or economic benefit from using NSTs in the United States and Canada ( 6 – 13 ), likely due to the sporadic occurrence of the pests they are purported to control. In a recent analysis, <5% of corn fields in Quebec experienced a measurable benefit from the use of NSTs ( 14 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

IPM reduces insecticide applications by 95% while maintaining or enhancing crop yields through wild pollinator conservation

Pecenka

Ingwell

Foster

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Pest management practices in modern industrial agriculture have increasingly relied on insurance-based insecticides such as seed treatments that are poorly correlated with pest density or crop damage. This approach, combined with high invertebrate toxicity for newer products like neonicotinoids, makes it challenging to conserve beneficial insects and the services that they provide. We used a 4-y experiment using commercial-scale fields replicated across multiple sites in the midwestern United States to evaluate the consequences of adopting integrated pest management (IPM) using pest thresholds compared with standard conventional management (CM). To do so, we employed a systems approach that integrated coproduction of a regionally dominant row crop (corn) with a pollinator-dependent specialty crop (watermelon). Pest populations, pollination rates, crop yields, and system profitability were measured. Despite higher pest densities and/or damage in both crops, IPM-managed pests rarely reached economic thresholds, resulting in 95% lower insecticide use (97 versus 4 treatments in CM and IPM, respectively, across all sites, crops, and years). In IPM corn, the absence of a neonicotinoid seed treatment had no impact on yields, whereas IPM watermelon experienced a 129% increase in flower visitation rate by pollinators, resulting in 26% higher yields. The pollinator-enhancement effect under IPM management was mediated entirely by wild bees; foraging by managed honey bees was unaffected by treatments and, overall, did not correlate with crop yield. This proof-of-concept experiment mimicking on-farm practices illustrates that cropping systems in major agricultural commodities can be redesigned via IPM to exploit ecosystem services without compromising, and in some cases increasing, yields.

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“…Although a significantly lower amount of active ingredient is applied per unit area when sowing treated seeds [15,27] than when applying granulated insecticides, the treated area is significantly larger due to the prophylactic application. There is a growing body of research showing that sowing treated seeds consequently has a negative impact on beneficial entomofauna [35,49,50]. Research by Dubey et al [50] showed that seed treatments with neonicotinoids can affect arthropod communities, including important natural enemies, even when environmental persistence and active ingredient concentrations are low.…”

Section: Insecticides For Seed Treatmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future of Insecticide Seed Treatment

Vojvodić

Bažok

2021

Sustainability

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Seed treatment as a method of local application of pesticides in precise agriculture reduces the amount of pesticides used per unit area and is considered to be the safest, cheapest and most ecologically acceptable method of protecting seeds and young plants from pests in the early stages of their development. With the introduction of insecticides from the neonicotinoid group in the mid-1990s, the frequency of seed treatment increased. Due to suspected negative effects on pollinators, most of these insecticides are banned in the European Union. The ban has therefore led to a reduction in the number of active substances approved for seed treatment and to an increased re-use of active substances from the group of pyrethroids as well as other organophosphorus insecticides, which pose potentially very serious risks, perhaps even greater than those of the banned neonicotinoids. The objective of this review is to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of seed treatment and the potential role of insecticide seed treatment in reducing the negative impact of pesticides on the environment. The main disadvantage of this method is that it has been widely accepted and has become a prophylactic protective measure applied to almost all fields. This is contrary to the principles of integrated pest management and leads to an increased input of insecticides into the environment, by treating a larger number of hectares with a lower amount of active ingredient, and a negative impact on beneficial entomofauna. In addition, studies show that due to the prophylactic approach, the economic and technical justification of this method is often questionable. Extremely important for a quality implementation are the correct processing and implementation of the treatment procedure as well as the selection of appropriate insecticides, which have proven to be problematic in the case of neonicotinoids. The ban on neonicotinoids and the withdrawal of seed treatments in oilseed rape and sugar beet has led to increased problems with a range of pests affecting these crops at an early stage of growth. The results of the present studies indicate good efficacy of active ingredients belonging to the group of anthranilic diamides, cyantraniliprole and chlorantraniliprole in the treatment of maize, soybean, sugar beet and rice seeds on pests of the above-ground part of the plant, but not on wireworms. Good efficacy in controlling wireworms in maize is shown by an insecticide in the naturalites group, spinosad, but it is currently used to treat seeds of vegetable crops, mainly onions, to control onion flies and flies on other vegetable crops. Seed treatment as a method only fits in with the principles of integrated pest management when treated seeds are sown on land where there is a positive prognosis for pest infestation.

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Ecological impacts of pesticide seed treatments on arthropod communities in a grain crop rotation

Cited by 20 publications

References 63 publications

Pesticides and Soil Invertebrates: A Hazard Assessment

Pesticides and Soil Invertebrates: A Hazard Assessment

IPM reduces insecticide applications by 95% while maintaining or enhancing crop yields through wild pollinator conservation

Future of Insecticide Seed Treatment

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